From international linkages to internal divisions in China: The political response to climate change negotiations

Asian Survey

Volumn 46, Issue 6, 2006, Pages 846-866

  Jeon, Hyung Kwon ^a   Yoon, Seong Suk ^a  

^a Chonnam National University   (South Korea)

Author keywords

China politics; Climate change; Environmental negotiations; Epistemic community; Kyoto protocol

Indexed keywords

CLIMATE CHANGE; ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUE; ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS; KYOTO PROTOCOL;

ASIA; CHINA; EURASIA; FAR EAST;

EID: 33846118928     PISSN: 00044687     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1525/as.2006.46.6.846     Document Type: Article

References (41)

1. The climate change negotiation process consists basically of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992; the Kyoto convention in 1997; intergovernmental negotiations, such as the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) from 1990-92; the Conference of the Parties (COP) since 1995; Subsidiary Bodies meetings; and a series of workshops.
2. 2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion, 1971-99 (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development [OECD], 2001).
3. The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 1997 in order to embody the UNFCCC.
4. See Peter M. Haas, "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination," International Organization 46:1 (Winter 1992), p. 3.
5. See Peter Katzenstein, "International Relations and Domestic Structures," ibid. 30:1 (Winter 1976), pp. 1-45
6. and idem, Between Power and Plenty (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978).
7. Robert O. Keohane and Helen V. Milner, Internationalization and Domestic Politics (N. Y.: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 233-58.
8. "Bureaucracy" indicates bureaucrats and their organizations that are supposed to "functionally" operate on the process of foreign policy, yet, "politically" operate to the top decision maker and other policy agents.
9. See Lawrence Freedman, "Logic, Politics, and Foreign Policy Process: A Critique of the Bureaucratic Politics Model," International Affairs 52:34 (1976), pp. 434-49.
10. Refer to Jeff Frieden, "Sectoral Conflict and U.S. Foreign Economic Policy," in The State and American Foreign Economic Policy, ed. G. John Ikenberry, David Lake, and Michael Mastanduno (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 59-90
11. and Helen Milner, Resisting Protectionism: Global Industries and the Politics of International Trade (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1988).
12. Elizabeth Economy, "Chinese Policy-making and Global Climate Change: Two-Front Diplomacy and the International Community," in ne Internalization of Environmental Protection, ed. Miranda A. Schreurs and Elizabeth Economy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 15.
13. See Matthew Paterson, Global Warming and Global Politics (New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 14.
14. For more information on China's principles of international environmental issues, see Zhijia Wang, ed., Zhongguo Huanjing Waijiao [China environmental diplomacy] (Beijing: China Environmental Science Press, 1999), pp. 228-31.
15. See Alastair Iain Johnston, "China and International Environmental Institutions: A Decision Rule Analysis," in Energizing China: Reconciling Environmental Protection and Economic Growth, ed. Michael B. McElroy, Chris P. Nielsen, and Peter Lydon (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), p. 565.
16. See Abram Chayes and Charlotte Kim, "China and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change," in ibid., pp. 517-20.
17. China has joined and signed 50 international environmental treaties over 15 convention areas and 27 bilateral agreements. Zhongguo Huanjingbao [Chinese Environmental Press], , accessed July 14, 2004.
18. Xinhua News Agency, October 20, 1994.
19. See Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, "The Climate Change Negotiations," in Negotiating Climate Change, ed. Irving Mintzer and J. Amber Leonard (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 133.
20. Johnston, "China and International Environmental Institutions," p. 578.
21. See IPCC, Climate Change: The Science of Climate Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
22. Author interview with an official of the Energy Research Institute of China's State Development Planning Commission, Beijing, August 2, 2001.
23. In 1998, the SPC was reorganized into the State Development Planning Commission.
24. See Economy, "Chinese Policy-making," p. 24.
25. For China, Japan has been the largest Official Development Assistance (ODA) donor.
26. NEPA, Zhongguo Huanjing Gongbao [Report on the Chinese environment] (Beijing: NEPA, 1991).
27. Referred in Hsu Szu-Chien, "International Linkage and China's Environmental Policies," Issues and Studies 36:3 (May/June 2000), pp. 61-65.
28. Economy, "Chinese Policy-making," p. 21.
29. Author interview with a chief official in the Research Academy of Environmental Science of China and Research Institute of Climate Change Impact, Beijing, August 1, 2001.
30. The community was established in 1992 by the China State Council. Its members count 47, including 25 Chinese and 22 foreigners.
31. CCICED,SEPA, ed.,Di'erjie Zhongguo Huanjing yu Fazhan Guojihezouweiyuanhui Diyicihuiyi Wenjian Huibian [The document collection at the 2nd session of the CCICED] (Beijing: China Environmental Science Press, 1998), pp. 36-37.
32. According to the author's field survey, many Chinese enterprises have discharged serious pollution relatively unrestricted from the government's control. In fact, 56.2% of sample business persons replied that they never have faced any sanctions on their companies for pollution, while 32.9% have been punished, and only 11% received an advance warning for five years (1997-2001). A sample survey was conducted in Beijing from July 10 to August 20, 2001.
33. According to the author's survey question, "Would you select the 'cost' of environmental equipment or the 'fine' as provided by laws assuming that the fine is lower than equipment cost?" about 47.6% of Chinese enterprises chose the former, while 52.4% chose the latter. See ibid.
34. See Lester Ross, Environmental Policy in China (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), p. 11.
35. Luilin Jin, Wang Qin, Zhongguo Huanjing yu Ziranziyuan Lifia Rougan Wenti Yanjiu [A study on some problems in legislations about Chinese environment and natural resource] (Beijing: Beijing University Press, 1999), pp. 8-13.
36. Elizabeth Economy, "Negotiating the Terrain of Global Climate Change Policy in the Soviet Union and China Linking International and Domestic Decisionmaking Pathways," Ph.D. diss. (University of Michigan, 1994 , pp. 154, 179.
37. State Council, "Zhongguo Duiyu Quanqiu Qihou Bianhuade Lichang yu Duice" [China's position and response on climate change problems], Zhongguo Huanjing Kexue [Chinese Environmental Science] 11:6 (1991), pp. 457-59.
38. Tianshen Wen, "China's Energy Resources: Present and Future," China Today (February 1990).
39. See State Council, "Zhongguo Duiyu," p. 264.
40. The Kyoto mechanism includes a "clean development mechanism (CDM ," "joint implementation (JI)," "activities implemented jointly (AIJ)," and "emissions trading (ET)," which are market-oriented mechanisms. See Kyoto Protocol 1997, Articles 6, 12, 17, , accessed August 17, 2005.
41. Because China was not a member of the Annex I countries in the first period, it has no compulsory duty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions right now. Annex 1 nations are those with a responsibility for compulsory emissions reduction, such as the industrialized countries that were members of the OECD in 1992, plus countries with economies in transition (the EIT Parties), including the Russian Federation, the Baltic States, and several Central and Eastern European states. See , accessed April 1, 2005.